I’m not really a fan of compromise. Overall, I think that compromise should be avoided. Compromise means both parties give up something in order to meet in the middle. There’s nothing wrong with that when the issue is a small, one-time decision like what restaurant to go to this evening, or making a lunch date instead of a dinner date since your auntie doesn’t like to drive at night.
But when the problem is long term or ongoing, or if the issue is one of the heart or beliefs, then compromise can be destructive. Let me share an example: my wonderful husband and I don’t like the same kind of toilet paper. What to do? I could be sacrificial (then eventually resent it, maybe) and only buy the kind he likes. He could return the favor when he does the shopping. That would mean, in both cases, that until the supply ran out, one of us would have a basic need unsatisfactorily met. Or, we can do what we do – we don’t compromise. We buy my favorite brand and we buy his preference and display both roles proudly on matching holders next to each other. No compromise, two happy bums. Problem solved without compromise.
It used to be that “Live and let live” was the prevailing wisdom when dueling beliefs interacted. It used to be that if you felt differently than I about religion, or politics, or child rearing, or whether to be a carnivore or vegetarian, or any of a thousand other important and minor topics, then we might have a discussion (sometimes heated and loud but a discussion just the same), then go our separate ways to continue on our own paths. We might not spend a lot of time together, but we held to the idea that you can have your beliefs and I can retain mine.
Our society does not adhere to this model any more. If you and I disagree, instead of showing mutual respect and walking away, we cancel one another, we attack one another (physically and verbally, privately and very publically), we do whatever it takes to shame and ridicule and hurt the other. Mutual respect, civility, and human kindness are dead. True tolerance and love have been replaced. And replaced by something ugly and selfish and destructive. A person stops being a person and becomes a pariah for believing in tradition values of right and wrong. People with common sense about health issues have been deemed selfish and dangerous. I read the news and see how rigid and cruel we’ve become and I’m ashamed of us. I’m fearful for us. If you don’t like my kind of toilet paper, okay. Go buy your own. Do not attempt to erase me over it.
